Westminster Quotes & Sayings

The splendor of a human heart that trusts it is loved unconditionally gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony", Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", the sight of 10,000 butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom. Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it. — Brennan Manning

What happens when there is a conflict between the Scottish parliament, if it was established, and the Westminster parliament? Who is supreme? — John Major

People don't want to go back to the days, pre-referendum, when the Westminster establishment sidelined and ignored Scotland. They want Scotland's voice to be heard. — Nicola Sturgeon

You have a job but you don't always have job security, you have your own home but you worry about mortgage rates going up, you can just about manage but you worry about the cost of living and the quality of the local school because there is no other choice for you.rankly, not everybody in Westminster understands what it's like to live like this and some need to be told that it isn't a game. — Theresa May

PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead. — Ambrose Bierce

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold for which I thank the Paddington and Westminster Public Libraries. — Peter Porter

Let us put the normal divisions of politics aside. Let us come together as one country; let us seize this historic moment to shift the balance of power from the corridors of Westminster to the streets and communities of Scotland. — Nicola Sturgeon

In the year 1257, an elephant died in the Tower menagerie and was buried in a pit near the chapel. But the following year he was dug up and his remains sent to Westminster Abbey. Now, what did they want at Westminster Abbey, with the remains of an elephant? If not to carve a ton of relics out of him, and make his animal bones into the bones of saints? — Hilary Mantel

If you have a Tory government at Westminster that takes us out of Europe against our will, there may be people in Scotland who think, 'You know what, we might be better off independent.' — Nicola Sturgeon

is, in the words of The Westminster Shorter Catechism, "any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God" (Q. 14).6 Sin is mutiny, either by its omission ("want of conformity to") or its commission ("transgression of the law of God"). — Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Some in Westminster have talked about her receiving a state funeral when she dies, which seems a bizarre sort of tribute to someone who believed the state should do as little as possible. It would be far more appropriate to allow competitive bids from private companies to run the funeral arrangements. 'And we now go over live to Westminster, where state leaders are lining up for Lady Thatcher's funeral sponsored by McDonald's. And there we see the coffin respectfully borne on the shoulders of six part-time burger-flippers dressed in the official Ronald McDonald costume, before the private cremation when the body will be flame-grilled with gherkins and a slice of cheese.'
It's what she would have wanted. — John O'Farrell

I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe — Kenneth Clarke

looked at the better-informed faces passing with that Westminster Expression, the Estate Expression: a certain gravitas, a pinch of visible intelligence, alert attention, and - above all - irritation. Westminster found all that was not Westminster - and much that was - deeply irritating. Here — A. L. Kennedy

The authority of the Scriptures does not depend on the decision of the church or the individual to validate it. To paraphrase the Westminster Confession, we receive it as the word of God because of what it is, not because of what we make of it. — Michael S. Horton

Because obviously she was the most qualified for the position. At long last Edward had arrived at the enlightened state of knowing that a woman could do a job just as well as a man. Yep. That's how it happened. Edward abdicated his throne. Elizabeth would be crowned queen at Westminster Abbey that same week, and we all know she'd be the best ruler of England ever. And now history can more or less pick up along the same path where we left it. — Cynthia Hand

Thankfully, due to the United Kingdom and the commitment of the Westminster government we are able to ensure that money brought in, whether it be from the City of London or from North Sea oil, can be pooled and directed to wherever it is needed most. That is what being in the United Kingdom is all about. — Iain Duncan Smith

English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts. — James Anthony Froude

Thus, at long last, as a visible emblem of unity was daily growing in the new Palace of Justice then being erected in the Strand, half way between the historic site of Westminster the historic centre of the commercial capital of the world, there began to grow up, in the minds of reformers, the vision of a great and united Supreme Court of Justice, with uniform principles, uniform law, and uniform procedure. — Edward Jenks

The crime scenes of the Wednesday deaths in Westminster had come to be old wine in new wine skins. Nothing changed except the victims. — S.A. David

The young man who, at the end of September, 1924, dismounted from a taxicab in South Square, Westminster, was so unobtrusively American that his driver had some hesitation in asking for double his fare. The young man had no hesitation in refusing it. — John Galsworthy

The U.K.'s debt belongs legally to Westminster, so Scotland, by definition, can't default on it. — Nicola Sturgeon

Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel. — Coco Chanel

I didn't particularly want to go to Westminster - not that there were many seats available or chances for women to get elected. In 1987, Labour sent down 50 MPs, and only one of them was a woman. — Johann Lamont

They bear down upon Westminster, the ghost-consecrated Abbey, and the history-crammed Hall, through the arches of the bridge with a rush as the tide swelters round them; the city is buried in a dusky gloom save where the lights begin to gleam and trail with lurid reflections past black velvety- looking hulls - a dusky city of golden gleams. St. Paul's looms up like an immense bowl reversed, squat, un-English, and undignified in spite of its great size; they dart within the sombre shadows of the Bridge of Sighs, and pass the Tower of London, with the rising moon making the sky behind it luminous, and the crowd of shipping in front appear like a dense forest of withered pines, and then mooring their boat at the steps beyond, with a shuddering farewell look at the eel-like shadows and the glittering lights of that writhing river, with its burthen seen and invisible, they plunge into the purlieus of Wapping.
("The Phantom Model") — Hume Nisbet

The only place that's holier than St. Andrews is Westminster Abbey. — Sam Snead

On a very gloomy dismal day, just such a one as it ought to be, I went to see Westminster Abbey. — Karl Philipp Moritz

The pirates left the boat in the Thames, next to the Palace of Westminster. They deliberately parked across two disabled spaces, because that kind of behaviour was pretty much the whole point of being a pirate. — Gideon Defoe

We've chosen to stay part of the Westminster system, but we don't want to be a forgotten, sidelined part of it. — Nicola Sturgeon

From the period of development to the present, Reformed theologians have debated the finer points (particularly the relation of the Sinai covenant to the covenant of grace). Nevertheless, a consensus emerged (evident, for example, in the Westminster Confession) affirming the three covenants I have mentioned: the eternal covenant of redemption; the covenant of works; and the covenant of grace. With these last two covenants, Reformed theology affirmed (with Lutheranism) the crucial distinction between law and gospel, but within a more concrete biblical-historical framework ... Ironically, just at the moment when so much Protestant biblical scholarship is rejecting a sharp distinction between law and gospel, Ancient Near Eastern scholars from Jewish and Roman Catholic traditions have demonstrated the accuracy of that seminal distinction between covenant of law and covenants of promise. P.13 — Michael S. Horton

Public perception of the Westminster arena, with all its posturings, does little to engender a sense of voter belief. — Charles Kennedy

It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals,
so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and responsible debaters get on their legs. — James Russell Lowell

Too often in the past, Scotland has been sidelined and ignored in the Westminster corridors of power, but that doesn't have to be the case anymore. — Nicola Sturgeon

There have been several Duchesses of Westminster but there is only one Chanel! — Coco Chanel

I grew up in New Jersey in the '80s. That means one thing: Big hair ... I had big hair, my boyfriends had big hair, we all had big hair. Our prom looked like the poodle division of the Westminster dog show. — Jancee Dunn

I've not hidden and I'll never hide the fact that I want Scotland to be an independent country. But as long as we're part of the Westminster system, it's really important to people in Scotland that we get good decisions coming out of Westminster. So we've got a vested interest in being a constructive participant. — Nicola Sturgeon

The British political system and the whole clapped out Westminster architecture, and the language that we use about politics, it's completely unsustainable. You either decide to be part of that transition to do something different. Or you cling to old certainties. — Nick Clegg

Presently [Bridey] said: "If I was Rex" - his mind seemed full of such suppositions: "If I was Archbishop of Westminster," "If I was head of the Great Western Railway," "If I was an actress," as though it were a mere trick of fate that he was none of these things, and he might awake any morning to find the matter adjusted - "if I was Rex I should want to live in my constituency. — Evelyn Waugh

I've lived in a flat in Westminster in London for over 20 years; and I also have a house in the country, down in Somerset, so I have the best of both worlds. — Marti Webb

We will never vote for the renewal of Trident; that's a decision which will fall to be made in the next Westminster parliament. We will never vote for that. — Nicola Sturgeon

In the firm expectation that when London shall be a habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins in the midst of an unpeopled marsh, when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream, some Transatlantic commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges and their historians. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

That arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been — Charles Dickens

At 10 A.M. on the Friday after the election in 2010, David Cameron's team met in his room at the Westminster Bridge Park Plaza Hotel. Cameron was clear that, unable to form a majority government, they had to begin talks with the Lib Dems about forming a coalition. But in a rare example of strategic discord, George Osborne disagreed. — Michael Ashcroft

On the Palace of Westminster: There is a sense of entitlement that pervades this place like a colourless and odourless gas, creeping along the corridors and under every door. P.10 — Caroline Lucas

If animals had a Pope," Major Thompson said to me, "their Vatican would be in London. And if by some dire submarine cataclysm that noble vessel, Great Britain, were to be shipwrecked and start to founder, believe me, there would surely be somebody in Westminster to cry from the top of the Tower: "Dogs first! — Pierre Daninos

Upon Westminster Bridge
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still! — William Wordsworth

I know they'll take their knitting with them everywhere. They simply couldn't be parted from it. They will walk about Westminster Abbey and knit, I feel sure. — L.M. Montgomery

Harriet said, "You shouldn't have reminded me to sign that book, Peter."
"Why ever not? Have you suddenly become bashful about your hard-earned glories?"
"Because it watn's hers," said Harriet. "It was a library copy."
"Stroke of luck for the ratepaers of the City of Westminster," he said, grinning. — Jill Paton Walsh

Finally, there's a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider. — Diane Abbott

I've been breeding Dobies for years. Almost won the breed in Westminster at one time. — William Shatner

Darwin was one of our finest specimens. He did superbly what human beings are designed to do: manipulate social information to personal advantage. The information in question was the prevailing account of how human beings, and all organisms, came to exist; Darwin reshaped it in a way that radically raised his social status. When he died in 1882, his greatness was acclaimed in newspapers around the world, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, not far from the body of Isaac Newton. Alpha-male territory. — Robert Wright

The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism reads, "What is the chief end of man?" The Catechism's answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."[10] God graciously linked the pursuit of our chief purpose with our greatest experience of joy. — Hugh Ross

And so in my warnings, I was pointing to a number of incidents around the communion that could undermine our growing sense of communion - of becoming a global communion. So that's why I pointed to New Westminster in Canada, to incidents in the United States, and Sydney itself. — George Carey

By modern standards the whole of greater London, including Southwark and Westminster, was small. It stretched only about two miles from north to south and three from east to west, and could be crossed on foot in not much more than an hour. — Bill Bryson

Arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of — Charles Dickens

The winner of the Westminster Dog Show gets to drink champagne - out of the toilet. — David Letterman

Neither the Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple, Mount Gerizim, nor Jerusalem itself replace the existential awareness of God within the soul. Likewise, the ornate sanctuaries of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, neither Westminster Abbey in London, nor Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York contain the Holy Spirit without the faith of their congregants. — James Mikolajczyk

Westminster Abbey, the Tower, a steeple, one church, and then another, presented themselves to our view; and we could now plainly distinguish the high round chimneys on the tops of the houses, which yet seemed to us to form an innumerable number of smaller spires, or steeples. — Karl Philipp Moritz

There is a danger of Scottish politics being between two sets of dinosaurs ... the Nationalists who can't accept they were rejected by the people, and some colleagues at Westminster who think nothing has changed. — Johann Lamont

To quote a famous philosopher revered in my time 'But this is no different from regular life. When have you ever known what's going to happen in the future?' Wait a minute, Jonah thought. I said that. Back at Westminster, with Katherine. Does that mean I'm going to be a famous philosopher in the future? Does that mean I'm going to be revered? There wasn't time to ask. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

My petal.
Westminster's toy had tea issues. Thank Biffy and Lyall. Toodle pip.
A. — Gail Carriger

Being out and about talking to residents and representing their views is, in my view, as important to politics as the grandstanding that takes place in Westminster. — Lucy Powell

London is not a city, London is a person. Tower Bridge talks to you; National Gallery reads a poem for you; Hyde Park dances with you; Palace of Westminster plays the piano; Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral sing an opera! London is not a city; it is a talented artist who is ready to contact with you directly! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

On westminster Bridge, Arthur was struck by the brightness of the streetlamps running across like a formation of stars. They shone white against the black coats of the marching gentlefold and fuller than the moon against the fractal spires of Westminster. They were, Arthur quickly realized, the new electric lights, which the city government was installing, avenue by avenue, square by square, in place of the dirty gas lamps that had lit London's public spaces for a century. These new electric ones were brighter. They were cheaper. They required less maintenance. And they shone farther into the dime evening, exposing every crack in the pavement, every plump turtle sheel of stone underfoot. So long to the faint chiaroscuro of London, to the ladies and gentlemen in black-on-black relief. So long to the era of mist and carbonized Newcastle coal, to the stench of the Blackfriars foundry. Welcome to the cleasing glare of the twentieth century. — Graham Moore

After listening to modern tirades against the great creeds of the Church, one receives a shock when one turns to the Westminster Confession ... and discovers that in doing so one has turned from shallow modern phrases to a "dead orthodoxy" that is pulsating with life in every word. In such orthodoxy there is life enough to set the whole world aglow with Christian love. — John Gresham Machen

I went to the Westminster College for Men in Missouri, which is what it was called back then, and transferred to the University of Denver where I ultimately got my degree. — Ted Shackelford

I sent the first half of the dissertation to Rudolf Bultmann [major figures of early 20th century biblical studies and a prominent voice in liberal Christianity] as a courtesy with an invitation to respond to any points in my analysis and critique if he wished. I was speechless when I received a long letter from Bultmann, who had diligently examined the details of my arguments. His letter became a featured part of the publication in 1964 by Westminster Press of Radical Obedience: The Ethics of Rudolf Bultmann: With a Response by Rudolf Bultmann.
That book, more than any other , launched my career as a serious theologian. But it also led to my reputation as a situation ethicist, ironically just about the time I was beginning to disavow situation ethics. — Thomas C. Oden

We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent ... This leads to frightful results ... The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so ... Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue. — Bertrand Russell

What is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. — Westminster Assembly

The Dean of St Pauls talks absolute balls, The Dean of Westminster showed his to a spinster The Dean of Oswestry frisks girls in the vestry The Bishop of Birmingham buggers boys while confirming 'em, The Bishop of Norwich makes them come in his porridge, The Dean of West Ham smears their bottoms with jam. — Jean Findlay

appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, — Charles Dickens

I mean, you can't walk down the aisle in Westminster Abbey in a strapless dress, it just won't happen - it has to suit the grandeur of that aisle, it's enormous. — Bruce Oldfield

I had meant my promise to George. I had said that I was, before anything else, a Boleyn and a Howard through and through; but now, sitting in th shadowy room, looking out over the gray slates of the city, and up at the dark clouds leaning on the roof of Westminster Palace, I suddenly realized that George was wrong, and that my family was wrong, and that I had been wrong
for all my life. I was not a Howard before anything else. Before anything else I was a woman who was capable of passion and who had a great need and a great desire for love, I didn't want the rewards for which Anne had surrendered her youth. I didn' want the arid glamour of George's life, I wanted the heat and the sweat and the passion of a man that I could love and trust. And I wanted to give myself to him: not for advantage, but for desire. — Philippa Gregory

No one out there is interested in who did what to whom in Westminster politics. — Iain Duncan Smith

Infallibility: The position that the Bible cannot err or make mistakes, and that it "is completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation and the life of faith and will not fail to accomplish its purpose" (Westminster Dictionary). As the Christian church has traditionally taught, this doctrine is based on the perfection of the divine author, who cannot speak error. — Anonymous

My pledge to you is that the SNP will put women and gender equality right at the heart of the Westminster agenda. — Nicola Sturgeon

Westminster is peaceful. Sometimes we forget to lock our doors and nothing happens. — S.A. David

The clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers.
["Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," The Westminster Review, 1885.] — George Eliot

Why, Hurst couldn't have hit the side of Westminster Abbey with a pistol, even by throwing the silly thing. — Patricia Cabot

The truth of the matter is that countries the world over have deficits. Let us remember this about Scotland's deficit: it was not created in an independent Scotland; it was created on Westminster's watch. — Nicola Sturgeon

In Scotland, the indication is that for the Westminster elections at least, Labour voters are satisfied with their government. — Lucy Powell

It was Reagan who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians with his speech in London at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, which led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy. — Michael Ignatieff

the LORD God said: 'Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; — Westminster Leningrad Codex

As I passed along the side walls of Westminster Abbey, I hardly saw any thing but marble monuments of great admirals, but which were all too much loaded with finery and ornaments, to make on me at least, the intended impression. — Karl Philipp Moritz

Touch but a cobweb in Westminster Hall, and the old spider of the law is out upon you with all his vermin at his heels. — Henry Fox

The University of Westminster is well known for being a hotbed of extremist activity. — Maajid Nawaz

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever — Westminster Shorter Catechism

There are more speculators about New Westminster and Victoria than there were in Winnipeg during the boom and they are a much sharper lot. Nearly every person is more or less interested and you will have to be on your guard against all of them. — William Cornelius Van Horne

Westminster Abbey is nature crystallized into a conventional form by man, with his sorrows, his joys, his failures, and his seeking for the Great Spirit. It is a frozen requiem, with a nation's prayer ever in dumb music ascending. — M. E. W. Sherwood

Silk handkerchief that erupted out of the breast pocket, an affectation he had adopted to distance himself from the Westminster hordes in their banal Christmas-stocking ties and Marks & Spencer suits. — Michael Dobbs

Westminster is a jungle - and the hunter can always smell fear on its prey. — Charles Kennedy

The 'Little' or 'Barebones' Parliament, summoned by Oliver Cromwell to meet at Westminster on 4th July, 1653, after the dissolution of the remains of the Long Parliament, may have been an unpractical body, so far as the task of administration in troublous times was concerned. But it seems quite possible that the wealth of contumely and scorn which has been poured upon it was, originally, due quite as much to the fierce anger of vested interests against outspoken criticism, as to any real vagueness or want of practical wisdom in the plans of the House itself. — Edward Jenks

Commemorative stone in the floor of the Chapel of St. George in Westminster Abbey, London, dedicated in 1947: TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT Baden-Powell CHIEF SCOUT OF THE WORLD 1857-1941 Upon one side of the stone was the badge of the Boy Scouts, the arrow-head to point the true way as it had pointed the way for sailors and navigators from the time of the earliest maps; and on the other the badge of the Girl Guides-the three-leafed clover. — Robert Baden-Powell

Finally, it is wrong to say that "nothing" is more basic to the identity of the church than suffering. Nothing is more basic to the identity of the institutional church than the preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the worship of God in Spirit and in truth (Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.4). Nothing is more basic to the identity of the individual Christian than faith, hope, obedience, and love, the fruit of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 13:4-13; Gal. 5:22-24; 1 John 2:3; 3:10, 24; 4:7-21; 5:1-3). — Keith A. Mathison

I do not own a car, and my main form of travel to Westminster and in my constituency is by bicycle. I also take my bike on trains to meetings in other parts of the country, which enables me to see other cities and the other parts of the country. — Jeremy Corbyn

Her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. — Charles Dickens

If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual systems of theology, so as to remove liberal objections, and have not personal hope in God, I am nothing. And if I give myself to resolving the debate between supra and infralapsarianism, and to defending inerrancy, and to learning the Westminster Catechism, yea, even the larger one, so as to recite it by heart backwards and forwards, and have not love, I have gained nothing. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer

I go to see my kids in school plays, ... I watched Lorna in a concert at the Westminster College of Music the other day and it was amazing. I felt very proud and surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, because I've known her for 17 years, but I've never seen her do anything like that in front of an audience. It's brave, it's uplifting. — Sean Bean

Some days I feel like I'm only the fire hydrant to Westminster dog show. — Bob Beckel

It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective. — A. N. Wilson

It is contended that those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are encouraged: that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice, purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make them gentlemen. — Ralph Waldo Emerson